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Starting a Post with an Image
If you start a post with an image even if it is just a small image to the side of the text the image code will be the first words of your post. To see this when composing your post click on the HTML tab and see the code at the beginning of your post. This is what the bots see.
If you aren’t using a plugin like All-In-One-SEO or you aren’t writing/pasting in your own excerpts more than likely your search results will show the image code and not the words you want people searching to see. Here is an example of what I’m talking about:
ReBlogWorld BlogWorld Take Away
caption id= align=aligncenter width=500 caption=REBlogWorld Conference Lift Off October 15, 2009][/caption] First, I don’t usually write this kind.
www.realestatebloglab.com/real-estate-blogging/
reblogworld-blogworld-take-away/ – 82k -
Not very interesting is it? This isn’t the information you want readers to see to entice them to click on your link.
On yesterdays post I filled in the excerpt and the indexed result for today is:
Latest PR Update Some Interesting Observations
www.realestatebloglab.com/blogging-in-general/
latest-pr-update-some-interesting-observations/ – 83k
This is what you want those searching to find, not caption information about the image that starts the post. It starts telling the story and leads the person searching to what to know more.
The easiest way to handle this is to use the All-In-One-SEO plugin and check “Autogenerate Descriptions”
I’ve just checked this option for the Lab so I don’t have to remember to do this on each post.
You want to make sure the excerpt included in the search results say what you want to convey to the potential reader or person conduction the search.
Sometimes I write a specific excerpt if the first sentence is not what I want as the “Auto generated Description”.
It pays to pay attention to the words in your excerpts. Getting your post indexed is the first step; getting it clicked is the next logical step. You can greatly increase the likelihood of that happening if you have interesting and targeted excerpts which support your Title and post topic.
It was early on Saturday morning September 27th when I was on my little PR1 blog For No REal Reason when I looked up and noticed the little bit of green that had been there was missing. Hum! different data center? Nope PR update. I lost my lowly little PR.
Widgets were built into the basic structure of Wordpress about a bazzilion versions ago. One of those widgets native to Wordpress is the RSS Widget. It is a very powerful tool for WordPress bloggers but I don’t see it being used very often.
We all know that fresh content is one of the things Google bots love. Feed them regularly and they will return to eat more often. But is isn’t always easy to keep fresh content ready for the hungry little bots and like birds if you don’t keep the food our they will find other places to eat.
Using RSS Widgets
One way to keep things changing is through the RSS widget. Here are a couple of ideas to get you started.
Author Multiple Sites RSS Feed
If you author more than one blog you could be feeding content back and forth between them in an RSS Widget. It is easy to copy your feed into the widget and select the number of post you want in the feed. This way every time you publish a new post you create new content for both blogs.
You can Feed Any Feed
If you can feed it you can put it in an RSS Widget. Want to let the readers on your blog know what you are tweeting about on Twitter. You don’t need a widget from another source. You can put your twitter stream in an RSS widget and display it on your blog.
I’m not saying this is a good idea. From some of what I’ve read in tweets you wouldn’t want that on your blog. But it illustrates it can be done.
RSS Feed a Hashtag
Hashtags are used in Twitter to create a kind of thread. You simply put a # in front of number, letter, combination there of and you have a hashtag anyone starting a tweet with the same hashtag make it search able for that particular tag.
You could create a hashtag, create an RSS feed for that tag when searching for it on Twitter then past the feed URL into an RSS Widget on your WordPress blog. This allows you to tweet specific information to your blog by including a hashtag. Probably better than your entire Twitter stream being displayed.
Multiple Blogs, create a hashtag for each blog and you can tweet directly to the specific blog, Micro blogging within your blog. Creating fresh new content on the fly.
RSS Feeds are Good Food For Bots
These are just a few ways you can use the RSS Feed widget built into Wordpress Widgets. If you want to see some of these widgets in use check out For No REal Reason I’ve got several of them running on that site including a hashtag widget.
First, I don’t usually write this kind of post here at the Lab. But I’m writing this one for several reasons.
- I have to thank Todd Carpenter and Jason Berman for putting together a fantastic conference for REBloggers
- I need to suck up to both of them because next year (REBlogworld09 October 15, 2009) I want to speak and not mock debate Rich Jacobson (inside joke : )
- Because this conference tied to BlogWorld itself, it was like putting the chocolate coating over the desert. It made it all so much sweeter.
- Because I want to let REBloggers know they should start planning and budgeting for next years conference.
Several Times this weekend as the Blogworld conference was winding down I was asked about the best take away I have from the conference. I had to think about this and the real answer to the best take away didn’t come to me till I finally got some sleep last night.
My Greatest Take Away From Blogworld 08
After this conference I realized I’m not a Real Estate Blogger.
I’m a Blogger that writes about real estate.
Till this conference I wouldn’t have made the distinction. Now I understand. I will blog. I am a blogger. it might not always be about real estate but I will always blog.
REBlogWorld 2009
Plan to come: if you are a blogger or thinking about blogging or starting to blog. It is an amazing event and experience. It will energize your blogging. The fellow bloggers you meet, the encouragement you will get is worth the trip. It will fill you well. If your writing/blogging tank is running on fumes, or worse, on empty, this will fill your tank. The ideas, conversation, (parties) will let you network with some bleeding edge bloggers and thinkings in Real Estate today.
Thanks again to Todd and Jason, all the speakers who made the sessions a joy to attend and in my opinion held their weight even as a part of the greater BlogWorld Conference.
Now back to the Lab, where did I put my coat, Oh, Yeah, I live in Tucson we don’t have coats. : )
Blogworld
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
The LBC Designation for Comments
By Dave Smith Saturday September 27, 2008
Do Follow SEO Lists
There are now multiple lists of blogs which allow or use “do follow” on their blogs comments. These list have lead to an increase in what I refer to as comment spam. These are comments like “Great Post” “Wow, I really got a lot out of this” “Your blog has a lot of useful information” You get the idea. These are usually posts using keyword spamming (taught to them by the same SEO guru publishing the list) in the Name field. Another sure sign of this kind of spam comments are the ever changing urls used in a string of comments left one after another in a short period of time.
As I wrote earlier in the post on Lucia’s Link Love Plugin you can set a limit to the number of character acceptable in the name field to trip a switch and remove the “do follow” from the comment. I like this and find it helpful. I’ve recently heard some “SEO types are saying this selective do follow will be penalized by Google” Hum, why would they do this? But, if they do, then there will be on do follow plugins activated, or all comments of this type will be deleted in moderation, better yet, these types of comments will be designated “SPAM” and Askimet will flag any comment by this author as such.
Active Rainers Let Loose on The Blogosphere
I recently joined Active Rain because of an assignment for REBlogworld in Las Vegas. I find Active Rain to be the best peer to peer industry related social network and forum bar none. I say this without malice, it is the closest thing to a Real Estate Blogging Cult there is. They even call themselves Rainers. They comment with abandon for “points” for both posts and comments. It is like a giant RE Video Pinball parlor where you can rack up points for just about anything and get your name put on the “Highest Scores Board”. It is the Place of Virtual Real Estate Life.
However, I’ve discovered they don’t always stay confined inside that life. Some of them inadvertently venture out into the Blogosphere and view leaving mundane comments on do follow blogs as another type of “Point System”. (Rich I wrote this just for you, I thought you might be missing Active Strain : )
The LBC Designation for Comments
Therefore, I’ve decided to create a Link Back Comment or LBC designation for comments. If you are commenting on a blog and it is just for a link back, use the LBC at the beginning of your comment to designate it as such. It is like using a hashtag on Twitter.
This will save you the time of reading the post. (Which most don’t anyway). It might also keep your comments from being reported as spam instead of simply being deleted. If you are in need of a link back because you don’t have the time to create quality content yourself then using the LBC in front of your comments might get more of them published on blogs.
It also tells readers of a post and the comments associated with the post they can skip this comment since it isn’t really adding to the discussion in any manner it is just a self serving comment for the LBC author.
This will make it easier for legitimate readers since they will not have to wade through these mundane self serving comments to get to those that really do contribute to the discussion.
Here is an example:
Bolding the LBC is optional, it might be a good idea however to make it easier to spot for readers so they can skip it.
There might be a few LBC bloggers that read this and I would like you to leave a real comment on the idea and not an LBC comment.
I would also like to hear what other bloggers think about the idea. Would you approve LBC comments? Would you use them as a quick way to identify comments to delete or send to Askimet Spam? Is it just a bad idea and we all need to learn to live with mundane comment spam and the occational Rainer that escapes.
If you’ve read this far what do you think? Is my tongue firmly planted in cheek? How many times did you smile as you read this, how many times did you laugh out loud? If you should get an LBC designated comment would you be willing to share it or just delete it and keep on smiling?